I remember many years ago that the buzz word for global campaigns was consistency. Everything across all markets had to be consistent and the pressure to be consistent was so strong that companies would completely miss how illogical that requirement really is when marketing globally.
How can you be consistent when the market is not, when the audience is not, when the sales force is not? In some instances individual markets were forced to secretly change materials or add additional tactics simply to attempt to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand that pharmaceutical companies want their brands to have a certain reputation and feeling in the eyes of their customers...a consistent brand identity. Does that mean that the marketing should be consistent? No, I do not believe it does. Because markets are different, you need to be able to adjust your communication to each market. That does not mean changing the brand identity, only the approach - there are many roads leading to Rome.
"Consistency" is to "coherence", what "unchanged" is to "connected" OR what "same" is to "similar". Global marketing should have elements that are similar across all markets, but the implementation should be adjusted to fit the market by the individual country teams. After all, who knows the country markets the best? Surely the people who live there, work there, raise kids there.
I was raised in South Africa and moved to the UK, where I lived for a decade and I can tell you that even excluding culture and language differences, even the attitude to daily life is different. I would go as far as to say that in some cases marketing needs to be individualised to regions within countries.
Ultimately coherence allows markets to adjust communication to their customers, it allows for greater creativity, and I believe, greater acceptance of a global brand identity.
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